whiteboard functionality

[nekapoor]

Hello!

I work with a non-profit that provides free online tutoring for kids
living in underserved communities. We have a virtual classroom that
serves as our whiteboard and its includes flash based audio/video
communications and text chat capabilities as well as a whiteboard
space with pencil tools and geometry shapes and graph paper, etc. that
allow for students and tutors to communicate problems with each other.
And these tutoring sessions are all recorded for playback. This
service is provided by the company called WizIQ (http://www.wiziq.com/
features/). I noticed the v0.8 release of big blue button and the
audio/video controls are AMAZING.

However, I was just wondering if bigbluebutton was ever going to
venture into the field of creating a more traditional online
whiteboard that had features similar to what I mentioned above where
we would basically see a blank slate and students and tutors could
work on problems and upload documents and presentations as a
supplement to that.

And if any of the developers of BBB wanted a tour of the WizIQ
whiteboard, I would be more than willing to demo it for them. It
might serve as an inspiration for ideas for the BBB project!

Thank you!

[Fred Dixon]

Hi nekapoor,

Thanks for your email and support of our project!

The software you mentioned, to our knowledge, is not open source (and there's nothing wrong with that).  We (the core developers) focus our efforts on BigBlueButton and tend to listen closely to our community.  To understand how (and when) new features are added to BigBlueButton, see

  http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#When_will_feature_X_be_implemented

If you can enumerate the functionality you want added to the whiteboard, that would be better.  To be clear, we don't want to copy others, we take our inspiration from our community and do something better (if possible).

Regards,... Fred

-- 
BigBlueButton Developer

http://bigbluebutton.org/
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton

BigBlueButton on twitter: @bigbluebutton

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[Dion Gouws]

Fred

I agree that BBB is an amazing program. I have also tried to use the whiteboard in a more traditional setting and agree that that would be a nice function to have. Making presentations is one thing but often the lecturer needs to reiterate a point or quickly jot down an example and such functionality I believe will put BBB way ahead of competition. I have purchased a bamboo tablet to try this on the whiteboard but because the whiteboard is flash the drawing of objects or text is very slow and not very accurate. The bamboo tablet works very well with the supplied software but the interface using usb and the bamboo pen is not really workable.

Thank you for a great program and excellent support.

Dion

[HostBBB.com]

I have a resource that has extensive commercial whiteboard development
skills with red5/flash etc, that has done some investigation in
enhancing the whiteboard module like adding text, math functions,
muliple boards tabs, i funded some of his efforts last year for a
customer project.

Couple of issues though,
1) Getting a good requirements spec
2) Getting some funding to launch project.
3) Making sure effort is aligned to project roadmap and not a one
off.

Lastly, since this module doesn't require video/mic, and requires some
real effort is this a candidate for doing a new html5 based module
from scratch and how could this be plugged in it existing BBB
framework. Im leary in investing in signifcant flash development
for the long term

So whiteboard needs a funding sponsor(s) and a project that can be
architected ( a.k.a Richard) and aligned to roadmap.

Some open source projects have concept of "bounties" where users
contribute to funding features, in return for early beta access
etc... If you could get 100 people to fund $500 dollars towards a
major new feature, might be able to accelerate the feature sets.

I.m sure there are other features as well the community desires, video
syncronization, and co-browsing web pages are 2 on my customer's
lists.

BBB needs a "Friends of BBB" fund to help the core developers
accelerate, right now the burden mostly falls on a single company

I'll pledge $1000 to start the fund. (Of course Richard, Fred would be
best to direct the use of this towards acceleration)

Any other takers...

Regards,
Stephen
hostbbb.com

On May 17, 1:54 pm, Dion Gouws <diongo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Fred
>
> I agree that BBB is an amazing program. I have also tried to use the
> whiteboard in a more traditional setting and agree that that would be a
> nice function to have. Making presentations is one thing but often the
> lecturer needs to reiterate a point or quickly jot down an example and such
> functionality I believe will put BBB way ahead of competition. I have
> purchased a bamboo tablet to try this on the whiteboard but because the
> whiteboard is flash the drawing of objects or text is very slow and not
> very accurate. The bamboo tablet works very well with the supplied software
> but the interface using usb and the bamboo pen is not really workable.
>
> Thank you for a great program and excellent support.
>
> Dion
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 3:13 PM, Fred Dixon <ffdi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi nekapoor,
>
> > Thanks for your email and support of our project!
>
> > The software you mentioned, to our knowledge, is not open source (and
> > there's nothing wrong with that).  We (the core developers) focus our
> > efforts on BigBlueButton and tend to listen closely to our community.  To
> > understand how (and when) new features are added to BigBlueButton, see
>

> >http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#When_will_feature_X_b...

>
> > If you can enumerate the functionality you want added to the whiteboard,
> > that would be better.  To be clear, we don't want to copy others, we take
> > our inspiration from our community and do something better (if possible).
>
> > Regards,... Fred
> > --
> > BigBlueButton Developer
> >http://bigbluebutton.org/
> >http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton
> > BigBlueButton on twitter: @bigbluebutton
>

> > On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:23 PM, nekapoor <nekapoor...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> Hello!
>
> >> I work with a non-profit that provides free online tutoring for kids
> >> living in underserved communities. We have a virtual classroom that
> >> serves as our whiteboard and its includes flash based audio/video
> >> communications and text chat capabilities as well as a whiteboard
> >> space with pencil tools and geometry shapes and graph paper, etc. that
> >> allow for students and tutors to communicate problems with each other.
> >> And these tutoring sessions are all recorded for playback. This
> >> service is provided by the company called WizIQ (http://www.wiziq.com/

> >> features/ <http://www.wiziq.com/features/>). I noticed the v0.8 release

[Fred Dixon]

Hi Stephen,

Your heart is in the right place; however, we believe asking for donations to fund the development of BigBlueButton is the wrong approach.

While there are many other open source projects that operate by donation, we believe many such projects fall short of their potential.  It's hard to imaging growing a successful, long-term open source project in which a team of core developers devote their skills over many years while living off donations. 

We believe a successful open source project has community of users, developers, and companies all benefiting from and contributing to the project.  In particular, companies *have* to make money from BigBlueButton.  We are very happy to see an increasing amount of companies building commercial projects and services around BigBlueButton.  

We've looked closely at other successful open source projects, and those that are most successful (linux, eclipse, mysql, etc.) all have strong commercial backing in the project.  We think this is the right model for BigBlueButton.  We also think the Eclipse Foundation is a very good example of how to support an open source project. The Eclipse Foundation shows how a group of companies can come together, pay a membership fee to join an independent not-for-profit organization, and pool their resources to improve the project, and, in turn, all benefit financially from building products and services from the project.  

Like Eclipse Foundation,  we've been working for two years now to set-up such an organization for BigBlueButton -- called BigBlueButton Inc. -- and our strategy has been to continually improve the product so that more companies will become interested in building revenue streams around it.  Those companies, in turn, will want to purchase a membership in the foundation as a way to accelerate development. 

We're getting closer to launching BigBlueButton Inc.  It will be open for commercial, educational organizations, and active members of the community.

Stephen, if you have development resources to contribute to improving BigBlueButton (such as improving the whiteboard), we have a well-defined process for accepting contributions from the community.  See

  http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#Contributing_to_BigBlueButton

You don't have to be a commercial company to contribute.  Seneca College recently recently contributed a polling module to the project. Felipe Cecagno from the MConf team contributed the video dock module that landed in 0.8.

We hope it's clear that we're not asking for any donations for improving BigBlueButton.  We think it's the wrong business model and sends a confusing message to organizations.

If any educational or commercial organization wants to see new features BigBlueButton, then we recommend they read

   http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#When_will_feature_X_be_implemented

If you want to make a direct contribution, don't look to make a donation (we won't accept it).  Rather, take your money and purchase a product or service from the companies listed at

  http://www.bigbluebutton.org/commercial-support/

Some of these companies employ developers who work full-time on BigBlueButton.  The more these companies earn revenues from BigBlueButton, the more resources they have to contributing to improving BigBlueButton itself.

We think that is the best way to improve BigBlueButton.

Regards,... Fred

-- 
BigBlueButton Developer

http://bigbluebutton.org/
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton

BigBlueButton on twitter: @bigbluebutton

[HostBBB.com]

Fred, trust your judgement, you have been living and breathing OSS and
this project for over 4 years.

I understand BBB needs a few good size sponsors that have economic
benefits to really accelerate development of the core at the speed
needed to succeed long term in market, We get requests weekly from
smaller firms wanting to spend consulting dollars $1000-2000 dollars
to modify BBB to their needs, I push back for the most part on these
one off projects myself because it does not benefit the core project
or my goal of focusing on re-occuring wholesale hosting vs
applications development, always referring them to the other firms
that do commercial custom development.

These arent the large educational institutions, but the smaller mostly
for profit learning businesses with cash in hand and a goto market
business plan, Their collective numbers out weigh the larger
educational sponsors.

How do we get them on board to fund the features they all want into
the core, none are big enough to lead a feature right on their own,
and today they just opt to do the one off customizations that doesn't
benefit the project?

I listened to the committers meeting archive this weekend, and
understand most people truely under estimate what it takes to add a
tested, and production ready feature like fit-to-width to the core. It
amazing the amount of progress the project has made with so few
resources.

The project is being downloaded hundreds of times a week buy these
smaller companies, i believe some of these people would help fund
development to the core if given the opportunity to, since its a great
project and many are benefiting, but currently the hurdle for them to
participate is to high or does not exist.

It is a great challenge and opportunity to find the solutions, we
will look forward to participating in BigBlueButton Inc when it
launches later this year.

Its exciting as the eco system starts to mature.

> http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#Contributing_to_BigBl...

>
> You don't have to be a commercial company to contribute.  Seneca College
> recently recently contributed a polling module to the project. Felipe
> Cecagno from the MConf team contributed the video dock module that landed
> in 0.8.
>
> We hope it's clear that we're not asking for any donations for improving
> BigBlueButton.  We think it's the wrong business model and sends a
> confusing message to organizations.
>
> If any educational or commercial organization wants to see new features
> BigBlueButton, then we recommend they read
>

> http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#When_will_feature_X_b...

>
> If you want to make a direct contribution, don't look to make a donation
> (we won't accept it).  Rather, take your money and purchase a product or
> service from the companies listed at
>
>  http://www.bigbluebutton.org/commercial-support/
>
> Some of these companies employ developers who work full-time on
> BigBlueButton.  The more these companies earn revenues from BigBlueButton,
> the more resources they have to contributing to improving BigBlueButton
> itself.
>
> We think that is the best way to improve BigBlueButton.
>
> Regards,... Fred
> --

> BigBlueButton Developerhttp://bigbluebutton.org/http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton

> ...
>
> read more »

[LutraMan]

Hi Fred,

I think Stephen has made some really good points. 

 

I'm a former employee of eTeachergroup.com. The company's entire business model is based on remote online learning. They based their virtual class on a very expensive, non open source program by interwise. They were looking for another program to replace that one for several reasons. One, is that the interwise program only worked on windows, and they had a lot of Mac users. Another, is that when they wanted to add features to the program, there wasn't much cooperation from interwise side to develop for them.

If they were to stumble upon an open-sourced based virtual class with a similar business model to the one described by Stephen, it would have been perfect for them. The investment in buying the program will be 0. Still there would be someone to support. And, most importantly, if they needed another featured in the system, and wouldn't need it to be unique just for them, they would pledge a few dollars for it, other client would be able to see the pledge on the site and would add their own pledge to it, and the payment will only go through once the feature is fully implemented.

For example, let's say they want to add a 'raise hand' feature that will allow the teacher to see when a student that don't have audio rights at the moment, want to ask something. Assuming they spend some time discussing it and felt they would invest up to 1000$ for these feature. Other companies, or maybe private teacher online, sees that pledge and decide to join in, investing between 50$ to 5,000$ each. On your side you see a 50,000$ pool for it. After implementing this feature, a win-win situation. eTeacher and other companies get their feature for much much less they would need to invest in developing, and BBB gets well earned funds to keep the project running and an extra feature, that could attract more clients.

I'm no business expert, but combining this with payed for support, seems to me like something that could keep the project running on open-source, and even profit.

 

That said, I would like to go back and discuss the main topic of this thread, the very slow whiteboard.

Being a eTeacher employee, I've learned a few things on the virtual classroom. One of those things, is that the main feature of the classroom, is the whiteboard. Almost all of the teaching is done by a combination of the whiteboard and audio. Another thing to consider is that the teacher from one side may not be a very computer oriented person, and would have a difficult time drawing on a whiteboard even with the slightest delay.

I've done some research and found other virtual classrooms also based on flash. They too had a whiteboard feature and though it was much faster than the one here it still had a small delay which made it impossible to draw accurately on the whiteboard.

Another thing I've found on my small research is 'jWebSockets'. An ongoing open-source project implementing the very new HTML5 feature of bi-directional communication from the browser. They already have a shared canvas in their demo, and though it does need some work to make more stable, it's an excellent feature and on the client (the drawing) side it has 0 delay.

 

Spending a lot of time in virtual classrooms, I've learned that even a 10 seconds delay on the receiving side is bearable. But when you draw something it must be real-time. It's OK if it takes a few seconds to show up on the student's screen, but if it has a 0.1s delay on your side, you wouldn't be able to draw what you wanted to draw, and that makes the whiteboard completely unusable, which, since the whiteboard is the main window used in the learning process, will make the entire virtual classroom unusable.

I know you have invested a lot of time building the classroom around the red5 environment. However, it might be time to consider gradually implementing a HTML5 version of BBB with just basic features (whiteboard, audio, maybe basic image uploading).

 I'm currently doing some tests with jWebSockets, so if you consider this an option, let me know, I might be able to help.

Looking forward for your reply. 

Tom Klinovsky

On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 9:23:49 PM UTC+3, nekapoor wrote:

Hello! 

I work with a non-profit that provides free online tutoring for kids 
living in underserved communities. We have a virtual classroom that 
serves as our whiteboard and its includes flash based audio/video 
communications and text chat capabilities as well as a whiteboard 
space with pencil tools and geometry shapes and graph paper, etc. that 
allow for students and tutors to communicate problems with each other. 
And these tutoring sessions are all recorded for playback. This 

service is provided by the company called WizIQ (http://www.wiziq.com/ 
features/). I noticed the v0.8 release of big blue button and the 

audio/video controls are AMAZING. 

However, I was just wondering if bigbluebutton was ever going to 
venture into the field of creating a more traditional online 
whiteboard that had features similar to what I mentioned above where 
we would basically see a blank slate and students and tutors could 
work on problems and upload documents and presentations as a 
supplement to that. 

And if any of the developers of BBB wanted a tour of the WizIQ 
whiteboard, I would be more than willing to demo it for them.  It 
might serve as an inspiration for ideas for the BBB project! 

Thank you!

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